(Photo: Bella Gonzalez)
TEMPE — With two broken sticks, two men down, and Mullet Arena roaring, No. 5 Penn State (2-0-0) appeared to be on upset watch as No. 14 Arizona State (0-2-0) mounted a determined charge to regain its lead with the game knotted at two. Despite the seemingly winning hand that ASU was dealt in the third period, its power play came up empty as another third-period falter led to its demise in a 4-2 loss to cement a Nittany Lions sweep.
The glaring misstep in the Sun Devils’ Saturday night stumble and the series was the absence of special team performance.
ASU was second to none on the power play last year, boasting an NCAA-best 29.6 percent success rate. Despite past success, the Sun Devils clearly struggled on the power play this weekend, going 0/6 on Saturday and 1/11 on the weekend for a nine percent success rate.
“I mean, they had chances,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said, “It was just a lack of killer instinct.”
The Maroon and Gold had a plethora of opportunities in their six power plays Saturday night. Among them was what would have been a go-ahead tap-in goal for sophomore forward Cullen Potter, but the left pad of Penn State’s sophomore goaltender Kevin Reidler left Potter empty-handed on the doorstep.
“[Reidler] was really good,” Powers said, “Credit to that kid, he had a really big game.”
The Nittany Lion between the pipes wasn’t the only blue and white jersey making saves Saturday night, as the team also blocked 13 shots, a majority of them being on the power play.
A lack of veteran scoring on special teams can also be linked to the lack of production..
Junior forward Kyle Smolen was second on the squad in power play production last season with five power play goals, but with his silence to start the year, along with the departures of Ryan Kirwan and Noah Beck, who combined for nearly half of their power play goals, the Sun Devils will have to rely on one of their 17 fresh faces to step up.
Newcomer junior forward Sean McGurn holds the lone special teams tally for ASU through its opening series. The USports transfer batted in an erratic puck in the first game, and his teammates will look to follow suit and raise the power play bar back to last season’s level.
“And you know, shame on me,” Powers said. “I probably should have put the second unit out, but I believed in our guys. I thought that they could go out there and win us a game, and I was wrong.”
The Sun Devils also conceded a short-handed goal with 14:29 remaining in the third period to sophomore forward Nic Chin-DeGraves, as he wired one past the glove of senior Sun Devil goaltender Connor Hasley.
Chin-DeGraves’s short-handed tally cut the deficit down to one for the Nittany Lions, giving them a shot of momentum that lifted them to their third-period comeback.
“To give up a shorty up at home,” Powers said, “that’s where the game turned on us. It was inexcusable.”
The Sun Devils didn’t fare much better on the other side of the special teams battle either, as their penalty kill surrendered three power-play goals on eight penalty kills, a 62.5 percent kill rate, which would have been dead last in the NCAA last season.
Additionally, Penn State’s final power-play goal of the weekend served as the dagger to its Saturday night triumph.
With junior defenseman Anthony Dowd taking what Powers called an “inexcusable” elbowing penalty in the final three minutes, freshman forward Gavin McKenna, the No. 1 prospect for the 2026 NHL draft, sent a howling one-timer past the ear of Hasley, giving ASU fans a “Forks Down” gesture and Penn State the lead.
The shortcomings of ASU’s special teams were a main contributor to Penn State’s unlikely comeback in enemy territory, with its opening goal being on the penalty kill and the game-winning goal coming on the power play.
The Sun Devils will look to get over their special teams woes before a quick turnaround next weekend as they host the Ice Breaker Tournament at Mullet Arena Oct. 10-11.
“They’ve got to look in the mirror and figure it out real quick,” Powers said.
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